Facing a 2025 budget gap of nearly $1 billion, the Johnson administration last week seized every option available to it other than any meaningful concessions from the city’s vast labor force to cover the mayor’s $17.3 billion spending plan.
A record-high sweep of unallocated tax increment financing funds? Check. Eliminating unfilled city positions? Check. Forcing an equally fiscally stressed Chicago Public Schools system to absorb a $175 million pension payment the city government has paid in the past? Check.
And the piece de resistance: a $300 million property tax hike, the largest since 2016. That was when Mayor Rahm Emanuel won approval of a $316 million increase, by saying it all would be dedicated to shoring up woefully underfunded police and fire pension funds…